Month: July 2009

Swallows and Nests

swallow

What you are looking at is a swallow hanging onto to the side of its nest. The nest is made of pellets of mud which the swallows make like a potter building a pot.

You can see the darker layer of mud at the top that has not yet dried. It reminds me of a young couple in a hurry to get on with things, moving into a house where the paint has not yet dried.

The perspective may appear a little odd. The white part is the ceiling of the barn; the darker part is a beam, and the nest is glued into the right angle between them. This photo is a crop from the whole frame, and the barn was dark, which is why the image is noisy and blotchy.

There were people coming and going around the entrance to the barn and the swallows deftly wove their way around them while I took some photos.

I watched the swallows diving and twisting outside, snapping insects. Then they came in, left the food they had caught with the brood inside the nest and off they went again, quicker than it takes to write this sentence.

Then one of them disappeared inside the nest for a while, with just its head and a tiny beak peeping out.